


The Bravest (Or The Dumbest) Thing Anyone Had Ever Seen

by LibKat



Series: Jaime/Brienne Week 2019 [1]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Childhood, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Day 1 - Spring, F/M, JB Week 2019, Jaime Brienne Week 2019, school field trip
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-30
Updated: 2019-09-30
Packaged: 2020-11-08 12:09:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20835227
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LibKat/pseuds/LibKat
Summary: On a school field trip, a friendship is forged.





	The Bravest (Or The Dumbest) Thing Anyone Had Ever Seen

**Author's Note:**

> With deep thanks to my fellow members of Gary's Writing Group for all they have taught me about writing, for listening to me rant over season 8, and for offering their friendship when I felt disconnected from much of the fandom. You guys ROCK!
> 
> Disclaimer: A Song of Ice and Fire, Game of Thrones, and these characters belong to a whole bunch of people who are not me. I will return them undamaged when I am finished playing with them.

JB Week 2019

Day 1 - Spring

The Bravest (Or Dumbest Thing) Anyone Had Ever Seen

_This was such a dumb idea for a field trip. _

Brienne curled her hands into fists so tight that her short nails dug into her palms. How could any school chose _this _when there were museums, and planetariums, and aquariums, and, and … all sorts of places where kids could learn about much better things than farms and farm animals.

Brienne had tried hard to get out of coming on this trip. She’d done her best to look miserable and sick when she came out of her bedroom that morning. She picked at her breakfast and held her stomach like she was going to barf. But her father was wise to her. She’d done the same thing to get out of photo day and weigh and measure day. That was too many times in the few months since they’d moved to Kings Landing. He didn’t let her get away with it again.

“Go, Starshine. You’ll have fun. You love animals.” Dad had said.

Dad was always hoping she’d be like the other kids. But she wasn’t and, when she was unlucky enough to draw their notice, the other kids didn’t let her forget it.

Looking for a place to hide out was what got her into this pickle. Brienne had had her fill of public humiliation for the morning. First, the sweet little lamb that she was petting decided to chew on her hair. When that nasty Taena Merryweather said it was because the lamb thought it was straw, everybody laughed at Brienne. The grownups who were the teachers and the class moms and dads laughed too, though a couple of them tried to hide it. And when she had scrambled away from the lamb pen, she had stepped in a big pile of poop left by the pony. It had come all the way up to her shoelaces. Miss Martell and the farm lady tried to clean her shoe off, but Brienne knew that she was in for days of being called Poopy Foot or something like that before everyone went back to their usual mean nicknames.

Brienne had been so upset that she hadn’t followed the rules. On the bus, Miss Martell had been very stern when she told the children of the fourth-grade classes of Selmy Elementary that they should never, NEVER open any of the gates or doors on the farm if they were closed. Farmers closed doors for a reason, and the children should respect that.

Brienne, the most respectful, rule-following girl in her class -- maybe the whole school -- hadn’t and now she was stuck. 

She looked across at her enemy. Its eyes were beady and evil, not warm and soft like in the pictures of the farm. Its horns were sharp and pointed and hungry for the blood of disobedient not-so-little girls. Its beard was white and stringy and dripping with some thick wet substance, like icky Mr. Frey from down the street.

But this billy goat was worse, stinkier and meaner than even Mr. Frey who yelled at all the kids to get off his nasty, weedy lawn when nobody wanted to walk on it anyway.

When she tried to move back towards the door, the goat moved with her, scary sounds coming from its evil throat. Any time Brienne tried to dodge around it, it lowered its head and charged at her, only stopping when she did.

How was she going to get out of this? She’d rather die than have her classmates see her cornered by a goat. But if nobody came to find her, would the bus leave without her? Maybe they would forget about her, and she could wait until the farmer closed up for the night and found her here still trying to stare down this evil beast. Then she could call Dad to come to pick her up on the farmer’s phone. Did farms have phones? The ones in the Little House books didn’t, but that was in the olden days.

Brienne looked longingly at the still-open door to the barn. At least the goat hadn’t run outside and shown everybody that she had broken the rules. It was happy to stay in here and try to kill her.

Evil beast!

***

_This was such a dumb idea for a field trip. _

Jaime Lannister kicked at the dirt path with his sneaker as he wandered away from the picnic area. Why couldn’t they ever have a field trip to a theme park, or a motocross, or the MMA? That would be cool.

At least this was better than some dumb museum or science-y place. The animals they let the kids get near were pretty lame, though. Just the fluffy babies that the girls all cooed over. It wasn’t like they were letting them near the big horses or the bulls. Jaime had worn a bright red sweater, Lannister red, in case he got anywhere near one of the bulls. Cersei would have been so impressed if he’d gotten to fight a bull.

Instead, his sister was mad at him for something that he didn’t even know what. She didn’t sit with him on the bus or talk to him in the long line for lunch. But that was alright. Let her be that way. Jaime didn’t need her. He’d filled his pockets with cookies from the picnic table, grabbed a hot dog and took off to explore while the grownups were distracted.

Jaime was about halfway through his dog when he noticed the open barn door and the weird sounds coming from inside. The baa’ing of some kind of animal sounded really mad. Under that, it sounded like somebody trying not to cry. But all the kids were supposed to be at the picnic.

Jaime set his hot dog down on a rail that was only a little bit dirty. It would be fine. And then he peeked around the doorjamb to see in without being seen. He was out of bounds and didn’t want to get caught by some farmhand or something.

It was that really tall, new girl from Miss Martell’s class. Jaime didn’t know her except that Cersei loved to make fun of her whenever their paths crossed. The tall girl must have figured out the pecking order of Selmy’s fourth grade classes pretty quick. She was smart enough to make sure Cersei and her crew didn’t catch her very often. Jaime didn’t know where she hid at school, but she’d gotten herself in a jam here.

Jaime watched as she tried to move to one side of the goat that was holding her captive. But it made a growling kind of sound and lowered its head. Man, those horns looked sharp. The tall girl stopped and kind of moaned or maybe groaned. She had tears in her eyes. The light of the barn was dim, but with those big, shiny eyes, Jaime could see how upset she was.

“What am I gonna do?” the tall girl said. “They’re gonna laugh at me some more.”

Jaime hunched his shoulders. She wasn’t wrong. It would be Cersei and her friends who would laugh the hardest, like when the lamb tried to eat the tall girl’s hair. To be honest, it did kind of look like straw, but that was a mean thing to say out loud.

Cersei had made this girl unhappy. That was a debt owed to this girl. And even at ten years old, Jaime knew about Lannisters and debts.

Jaime pulled off his red sweater. Did it work as well on goats as on bulls? Never mind, it was what he had. His jeans pockets were still full of cookies. They could be sacrificed to the goat in a pinch. 

Taking a deep breath, Jaime ran through the door, shouting, “Hear me roar!” at the top of his ten-year-old lungs. It distracted the goat long enough for him to reach the girl.

“Get behind me!” Jaime ordered.

“What are you doing, you stupid boy? Why didn’t you go get a grownup? Now you’re stuck in here too?” the girl yelled at Jaime. 

How could she be so ungrateful? Didn’t she see that he was saving her?

Jaime twirled his sweater in the air and ran a few steps towards the goat. It backed away, making loud baa’ing noises that Jaime thought sounded scared.

This was like something out of a story, the brave knight saving the fair … well, the maiden.

“The next time I run towards it, you run for the door. I’ll keep it distracted.”

“I’m not going to leave you in here by yourself! That goat is crazy. It wants the taste of human flesh or something.” The girl said back.

“You have to go first. I’ll be right behind you. Get ready… and go!”

Jaime waived his sweater around like one of those cool Dornish bullfighters and charged at the goat yelling again. It backed farther away, and the girl ran for the door, her long legs eating up the distance quickly. 

As soon as she reached the doorway, the girl turned. “C’mon! Hurry before it gets mad again.”

Jaime stared down the horned menace and quailed at the sight of its beady eyes zeroed in on him. He froze for a second, and his sweater dropped from his hand.

“What are you waiting for?” the girl yelled. “Oh, for crying out loud!”

She disappeared. Was Jaime abandoned? This was a million times worse than when Cersei got mad and ignored him for her friends. This was what really being alone like.

Then the girl was back in the doorway and in her hand was … was his half-finished hot dog!

“Hey, you stupid goat! Here’s something for you to eat!”

And with pinpoint accuracy that would have done a big-league pitcher proud, she hurled the dog right into that billy goat’s face. The goat let out a high pitched noise that Jaime never ever wanted to hear again, but was sure it would haunt his dreams. Then it bent down to the hot dog lying in the dirt and began to chew.

Jaime grabbed his opportunity and hightailed it out the door. The girl slammed it behind him with a resounding bang.

Both children slid to the ground, their backs braced against the door. They heard the sound of charging hooves, and a single impact shook them as the goat tried to pursue.

“Serves you right, you dummy,” Jaime yelled at the braying animal. “I hope you broke your horn!”

He turned his head to look at the girl he had saved who had then saved him in turn.

Her face was red and sweaty. She was covered in freckles, and her two front teeth had come in crooked. But her eyes were big and blue and … honest. They were eyes he knew would never let him down. Never get mad over something dumb and make him suffer until he apologized.

“Was that your hot dog?” she asked.

“Yeah. What? You think people just leave hot dogs lying around here?” Sounds, words came out of Jaime’s mouth before he had time to think about them.

The girl’s stomach growled. “I missed lunch. Shoot.”

Jaime dug into his pocket. The cookie was kind of mashed, and it had some lint on it, but he offered it to the girl anyway. She licked her lips at his offering but shook her head.

“I wouldn’t want to take it. You already lost your hot dog.”

Jaime reached down and pulled another cookie out. “I have a bunch. We can share them.”

The girl lifted a large hand and took the cookie. Their fingers touched, and a sort of shock ran up Jaime’s arm, like when you shuffle your feet across a carpet and then touch something metal. He didn’t know what it meant, but it was important.

“I’m Jaime.” He said.

“I know. Everybody knows you and your sister.” The girl replied, looking down as she broke off a piece of cookie.

“You’ve got a good arm on you,” Jaime said. “Why don’t you ever come and play ball.”

“Those boys don’t want me there. Hyle and Ron made fun of me when I first moved here, and I didn’t want them to do it again.”

“Hyle and Ron are dorks. They probably knew you were better than they are. Come tomorrow at recess. You can be on my team.” Jaime knew that with her on his team, they couldn’t be beat.

She blinked a few times and then her eyes got all teary again. Her chin quivered, and she swallowed hard. But the tears didn’t fall.

“Okay.” She nodded and stuck out her hand. “Nice to meet you, Jaime. My name’s Brienne.”


End file.
